Festival
by CheveronChick
Summary: Time passes much more quickly for Elves than for mortals, and sensing that his dear friend's life is approaching its end Legolas is reluctant to part from him. Even to attend a festival and see Gandalf's fireworks. (Chapter Three has been edited and fixed from the first posting because it cut off the last 8 or so lines. I don't know why.)
1. Chapter 1

He looked down the lane where Elrond and his family -blood or otherwise - stood waiting for him and then back to Gimli who was sitting contentedly with his pipe on a well-padded bench, "Are you certain you will not come with us?" His old friend stared at him with deeply knowing eyes. "Come with me." Legolas amended.

"Yes, I am certain." The walk to the market was not a long one for elves but it was for an elderly dwarf, even if both Elrond and Legolas had offered a cart of some sort to help transport him. "You will be fine without me."

Legolas was not convinced.

Since he had come to Aman he had most of his time on Elrond and Celebrians land, exploring the woods and coast and anything else that fancied him only immediately surrounded his new home. His soul still felt raw and tender, like a partially and badly healed wound, and being too far away from his safe haven made him uneasy.

"You must get used to me not being-"

"Stop it."

The words hung in the air unspoken anyways: _Used to me not being around anymore._

Gimli was trying to slowly help Legolas adjust to that very thought, to the thought of the final member of the fellowship to pass on and leave him alone. Elrond and Celebrian were trying to help as well, but Legolas was so stubborn.

If he did not want to learn and adjust, then he wouldn't.

Gimli sighed with sympathy "Legolas-"

"Not today, alright?"

Gimli heard the small tremble in his voice and took one of Legolas' hands between his own, patting it affectionately, "Now don't you go and start crying now, because then Lady Celebrian will as well and you will never get to go and see the festival."

This poor thing had been through so much pain already, his heart so haunted with too much love given and lost. Legolas took a deep breath and looked up to the clouds, gripping Gimli's hand tightly. "Go on lad, you don't want to miss Gandalf's fireworks, do you?"

"There will be other times to see them."

The elf had gotten like this near the end of Aragorn's life too, to reluctant to be parted from his side, for anything. Gimli didn't feel much older than last year, or the year before, but Legolas had grown more attached if possible. Perhaps the elf sensed something he himself did not yet.

"Now you are just being ridiculous. You can survive one single night without me, I assure you. I will still be here when you get back. As cranky as always but ready to listen to every detail."

Slowly his grip eased on the dwarf's hand, "Do you promise?"

Even if Mandow wanted to take him tonight, he would just have to wait until Legolas came back. There would be no leaving without a goodbye. He wouldn't do that to the dearest creature in his life, he couldn't do that.

He already knew what he would say to Legolas on his final night. He had been planning it for years; it had to be good enough to still bring the poor elf a measure of comfort thousands of years from now.

Because Legolas wound never forget him, and thus never truly forget the pain in his heart.

"Yes. I promise."

Legolas wasn't ready for him to leave, and if Gimli had it his way, he never would leave. But he would, he had no choice, and they both knew that.

He had written over forty letters for Elrond to give to Legolas whenever he thought it necessary, each also containing a little gift as well. He planned to write more letters, he would write hundreds if Mandos granted him the time.

He gave Legolas' hand another pat, "Now go on. Have fun, and tell me all about it when you get back."

Celebrian began making her way back up the walkway, while the others continued to wait patiently at the end. They were so good to him, and it continued to ease Gimli's heart that others seemed to see the same fundamental goodness within Legolas that he did, and loved him accordingly.

"Everything alright up here?" She asked casually, voice a soft as the setting sun.

Legolas answered: "No."

The same time Gimli said: "Yes."

Reaching out Celebrain began to rub a soothing hand up and down Legolas' back, sensing trouble Elrond took a few steps back towards the house, waiting for the signal for his wife. "Alright, what would you like to do about it?"

Gimli had loved Celebrian since the day he met her. Loved the way she interacted with Legolas, never questioning his moods or his sadness. Never belittling or ordering. Only care and compassion. If he wasn't okay, she intended to help him find a solution.

"I want to go to the festival."

Gimli smiled pridefully, "There's a good lad."

"You'll be here? When I get back?"

"I will fistfight Mandos myself if I must."

"Alright."

Together Legolas and Celebrain went back down the walkway and joined the rest of the family and began making their way towards the city and the night festival. Both twins made a good effort of distracting Legolas as they wandered, but Gimli still counted eight times that Legolas looked back to make sure he was still there.

Just in case.

It broke his heart.

Gimli never thought that the biggest concern of his natural death would be the effect of somebody else. But it was potentially the deepest fear that hat ever touched his heart.

He waited unitl the elves had walked out of view, and then another twenty minutes just to be sure before he got up from his plush perch with a groan. Slowly he made his way through the hallways and into the garden, passing by the Legolas' favirote tree, smiling when it dropped a few flowers peddles on him as he past. He carefully plucked a weed ready to seed as he left the garden and made his slow and aching way down the stairs to the sandy beach below.

There was still several burnt logs from a fire Legolas and the twins had had a few nights previous.

He started out across the darkening waters, the endless expance that separated these undying lands from the mortal one's he had gronw up on. He brought the weed up near his face and inspected it, watching as one little seed caught a daft of wind and blew itself into the oncoming darkness.

Legolas did this, not often but not infrequntly, whenever he missed his father too much. Apparently the used to do this in Greenwood to pass messages in the garden, when Thranduil was first teaching his son how to connect more fully with the nature around him.

He didn't know if it worked for Legolas, maybe Yavana made it work, and he doubted it would work for him, but it was worth a shot.

"You need to come now, Thranduil. I am holding on as long as I can, but your son needs you. Please hear him."

Closing his eyes he blew the seeds, wishing with every fiber that the seeds would hear and rely his words even if they were given verbally and not through a bond like with the elves. He watched as they drifted away, not into the sea but up, up, up in the air until if vanished.

Then, he began making his way back to the house to await Legolas' return.


	2. Chapter 2

**Another chapter, you said?**

 **You won't be too mad if I continue to Gimli's death, you said?**

(Maybe its just you, MegSuperfan, that wont be too mad for this)

 **Well.**

 **Here you go.**

… **..**

Gimli had always been told that death crept up on you the same way a hunting cat would, leaving you unaware of what was happening until the sudden end. That he would not know it was his time to die until after he was already dead.

But dwarves had never spent time with an elf, and had never seen several hunting cats attempt and fail to stalk its Leith pray. There was no sneaking past Legolas, not even for death.

The elf was already there with him already when he awoke in the middle of the night, sleeping fitfully on the bed next to him. The elf had taken to sleeping in his room, and his bed, three months ago.

Legolas always tried to defend that it was in case he should need anything, at any time. That this way he would not have to put unneeded effort into simple tasks. Gimli knew it was because Legolas had heard the first snapping twigs in the forest as death stalked closer.

But now it seemed to pace at his door. Impatient. Determined. Waiting.

For him.

Gimli looked to Legolas' peaceful face and actually contemplated not waking him. To let him keep this moment of peace before he woke in the morning to find Gimli empty, void of the soul and heart the elf loved so much. Before the shards of his heart that they had spent the last century painstakingly pasting back together again shattered to the floor.

He could already hear the wail of despair his best friend would make when he died, for it would be the same or very similar to the one that rocked Gondor after Aragorn passed. It seemed he could always hear that broken cry for help, any sort of help, at all times of the day.

Aragorn's death had not brought him as much sorrow as that cry had.

But he could never leave without saying goodbye. He would never,

Legolas would never forgive him.

He had tried to plan what he would say to him on this night. His final night. He had written it and rewritten it countless times but now it didn't seem good enough. Nothing could possibly be good enough.

As if death turned the handle on his door, Legolas' eyes snapped into focus.

He didn't know how much time he had left. "You know you are the greatest person or thing to ever happen to my life, right?"

Those impossibly deep blue eyes were already swimming with tears and Legolas scrambled upright to closer to the head of the bed, tucking his knee's under them. As youthful and swift as the day Gimli had met him. "Yes."

The word was in Elvish, but Gimli knew what it meant. Both the word itself and that the reason it was in elvish was that whenever he was severely overwhelmed Legolas often forgot he knew Westeron or that he should be using it.

"I'm sorry how much knowing me is going to hurt you." He was the one dying and yet Legolas seemed to be the one unable to draw breath, "And I know that means I should probably regret this friendship, and all our travels, and coming here with you." He reached an old, aching, and wrinkled hand to Legolas' chest and patted as you would on a baby, "Breath lad."

Brokenly, somehow, Legolas managed a breath, his hands clutching at the dwarves hand over his heart. Gimli could feel the impossibly fast heart rate and the slight tremble, it felt as though he could feel Legolas' heartbreaking all over again.

How many times could something so precious be put back together again?

"Please do not say that you do." To his credit, most of the words were in westeron this time.

Turning he hand in Legolas' grip he laced his finger with the much smaller ones, ignoring how they trembled. "No. I could never. I can hardly remember a time in my life that I did not know your smile now, and I do not care because I'm certain you are the best elf Eru could ever have had a hand in creating."

"Thank you," Legolas whispered, unable to get his voice to be any louder, "For letting me be your friend. For being my best friend, and for coming here and-"

But his voice was stolen from him and so Gimli filled the silence, "It was my greatest honor."

Legolas managed to get closer and scrunched lower, "Mine too."

Foolish of him to think he needed to practice a speech for Legolas to know what he wanted to say. Foolish of him not to remember that even when he could not speak Legolas understood.

Death swirled in from the sitting room, creeping its talons and its cold into his bedroom and Legolas began trembling even more.

"I love you, you flightly insufferable elf."

"I love you, you impossibly stubborn dwarf."

Death stood beside the bed. Not cold anymore.

"You be good."

And just like that, Death was gone with its new friend.

"I miss you."

Nobody was there to tell if he spoke in elvish or westeron.

Suddenly, violently, Legolas ripped himself from the bed. Tripping over himself or the carpet he crashed to the floor, too stunned and overwhelmed to keep his hands and cheek scraping badly across the cold ground.

He tried to stand, to run, to get away from the empty shell where his best friends used to be. From this room that reminded him so much of everything, he had just lost.

But his legs could not hold him, and his arms were shaking too badly to allow him to crawl.

He didn't know his mouth even managed this last desperate screech for help until long after this day, "Ada!" 

… **000000000000000…...**

"Ada!"

Elrond was up and out of bed in not even a second and racing for the door before his brain bothered to acknowledge that it was Legolas' and not one of his own children. Thankfully, his children never had a cause to call for him in such a heart-wrenching manner.

He was closer to Gimli's room than Thranduil, but if he was calling for his father and not for him it was not a healer that was needed.

That did not motivate him, or Celebrian, any less.

They raced from their room and into the hallway, Celebrian needed to brace herself against the far way to keep herself from crashing into it their momentum was so great.

Elrond reached the door to Gimli's room a second before her and thrust it open, spotting Legolas wretching on the ground halfway through the doorway to the bedroom. Elrond did not need to check to know there was only three, and not four, souls in the room.

Legolas didn't need to say anything for them to know what he needed.

Without hesitation Elrond scooped the heartbroken thing into his arms, ignoring and unbothered that some of Legolas' sick had gotten onto his arm. Celebrian held the door open as Elrond half sprinted back into the hallway, as Legolas shook and sobbed violently in his arms.

One step ahead of him, Celebrian raced down the hall towards the nearest exit and held that door open as well, Elrond spilled into the night air and set Legolas on the grass. Celebrian abandoned her post and threw herself in the grass as well, cradling Legolas' head in her arms.

The door had not even latched closed yet when it burst open again and Thranduil joined Celebrian in the grass. Legolas dislodged himself from Celebrians arms and into his fathers just as quickly as Thranduil had arrived.

Thranduil crushed Legolas to him as his sobs seemed to turn into wails of despair,"I'm so sorry, my poor little leaf. I'm so sorry." 

…

 **Now there also going to be a chapter 3**

 **Hopefully I can post it tomorrow.**


	3. Chapter 3

"Wake up, child."

And then there was light where before there had been nothing. Not dark, not light, not thoughts or feelings.

Nothing.

"You have been sleeping for two and a half thousand years, and yet you cannot find your peace."

There was someone in front of him, though it was could not quite hard to tell exactly what he or she looked like. The voice seemed slippery in his mind, hard to remember.

"What troubles you so?"

He didn't know the answer. He didn't even know how to answer.

"Ah, yes, I see." The being seemed to float closer to him, more feeling than shape. "Legolas. I should have known. Foolish of me." The idea of being fooled seemed to delight the form and its light danced like the northern lights.

"Yavanna had told me the two of your faës had grown closer than any mortal soul was meant to entwine with another. But I had not realized. Interesting."

The light and the warmth flower brother and warmer around him until there was nothing other than the pleasant tingle.

And then the light died, and the breeze was cool on his skin.

Skin?

Slowly a world appeared around him where before there had been nothing. The very familiar song of the magnificent forest around him brushed his ears. Familiar because there had only ever been one forest to like any dwarf enough to allow him to hear it's voice. "Am I in Greenwood?"

"In a manner." The voice was physical now, coming from a Silvan elf standing beside him. "The forest did not have the heart to live without their elves. Consequently, Yavana did not have the heart to watch her children wither when finally they were free to prosper. So she allowed them all to contain themselves within one seed. Which she left for King Thranduil and his people to plant."

Gimli could not even begin to imagine the joy they would have struggled to contain at the prospect. There was no better gift any of them could have been given.

Everything seemed to glow in a warm green light, the endless expanse of the canopy block most direct sunlight. As his ears became more accustomed to existing the bird's songs joined the trees and the creatures.

Butterflies danced from one flower to the next, and the flowers seemed to wave to greet them.

"Come along."

The elf began walking forward and it wasn't until now that Gimli realized this was not the body he was used to. The limbs were much too long and the view too high.

"Am I an elf?"

"You appear as one."

That was probably for the best, dwarves could not go casually strolling anywhere in Valinor. Considering the one and only dwarf to ever see these lands had apparently died over two thousand years ago. He had died over two thousand years ago.

It was an odd thought.

That he existed now, but he had not for over two thousand years, and that he would return to such a state after this day. Perhaps he should have been bothered and had he not already met a natural end he might have been, but even now all he could ponder about was Legolas.

Legolas had done and accomplished much in the two hundred or so years he had known him, there was no telling what surprises there could be awaiting him now.

Legolas.

He hoped he was well. That he had healed from his losses and the war, that he had found the peaceful joy he deserved after all the years of suffering.

The shrieks of elflings brought him back to the forest.

One tiny blond elfling raced by, something clutched tightly in her hand as three dark-haired children of various agest trailed after, yelling something in elvish.

"Oh, yes." His companion elf muttered and waved a hand in his direction, and the random elvish formed into meanings and sentences.

"Ada!" The tiny blond one screeched as she dashed into a clearing just ahead of them, she crashed into the legs of a much taller elf standing and talking within the green space. Obviously, the father she had been screaming for.

The father automatically reached down for the distressed elfling, tossing her lightly into the air to turn her tears into giggles before snuggling her in his arms. Unlike the dwarven ears he had been born with, these elven one's could hear the fathers words just fine, "Oh my dear little thing, and what has happened to you?"

The elfling sniffed and rubbed at her eyes, Gimli noticed the way the three dark-haired elflings attempted to blend in with the forest around them. "Freeze!" The father called, his face turning to where the little ones hid in the underbrush. They froze

And even though the words had not been directed towards him, he froze as well once he heard the voice. Legolas.

His wood elf. His abusred, flightly, and ridiculous elf was a father. Tears came to Gimli's eyes; what an amazing father he would be.

Legolas delicately wiped the tears from her face and kissed her head, "Elrendel ripped her in half and when I tried to come and tell you, he threw half of her into the river." The voice was tiny and dejected, and she hid her face in the strong arms that held her.

"Elrendel?"

The oldest, and now that he cared to look Gimli realized the one that did not have another identical partner, seemed like he wanted to be swallowed by the ground. "Yes, Uncle Legolas?"

"Come here."

The elfling scuttled out of the tree's and in front of his uncles stern face. "Yes, Uncle Legolas ?"

"I need to tell you what to do?"

The elfling scuffed his feet and stared at them like it was the most interesting thing Eru had ever created, "I lost my temper. I already said that I was sorry."

Legolas adjusted the grasp on his daughter, "That is not what I was referring to."

"I'll go and find Ada and tell him what I did."

"He is in the garden with your Uncle Elladan. Go now." He turned his attention to the treeline, where the two smaller and identical dark haired elflings still lurked, "As for you two, you have ten minutes to wash yourselves and be sitting at the dinner table waiting and ready."

Like the very fire's of Mordor had been lit under their hindquarters they sprinted out of tree's, across the clearing and up the path before Gimli could even finish taking a breath.

Satisfied, Legolas turned his full attention to the one in his arms, "Come now, let's see."

Sadly the little girl presented the half of what Gimli imagined was once a beautiful doll, now it seemed to have been ripped straight down the middle, an empty shell where stuffing used to be. "He killed her."

With a careful hand, Legolas took the doll and inspected it. "Fear not, little one, she will mend. If your Ada survived worse than that, I believe she will make a full recovery. She is much stronger than I."

Delighted at this great news she threw her small arms around his neck, "Nobody is stronger than you, Ada."

"I wish you were right, but your Nana is much stronger than I will ever be." The elfling giggled in his arms and Legolas blew a raspberry on her cheek, "But don't tell her I said that."

An elf he recognized melted out of the tree's across the clearing, Thranduil close by her side, "Don't tell her what?"

Legolas turned to look at the two of them, a radiant smile glowing on his face, "Nothing, my love!"

After setting the small being on the ground the elfling made a dash for Thranduil, who accepted her as readily into his arms as Legolas had earlier. She presented her doll to him, "Look what happened, Ada says we can fix her. Is that true?"

A moment after Legolas set his daughter on the ground he moved to wrap them around his wife, kissing her cheek as she said, "I don't believe you."

Thranduil looked over the doll as well, and carefully handed it back, "Your Ada is very, very good at fixing things. If he says she can be fixed, then she can be fixed."

"That's fine." Legolas tightened his arms a little until she melted happily into his side, the two of them looking like puzzle pieces that had been separated for far too long, "I was just saying what a wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, flawless woman you are and how lucky I am every day that you tricked you into marrying me."

She laughed and kissed him, as Thranduil commented, "I would not be surprised if he were telling the truth, though I do not think he is, for he says such things to me constantly."

"Its true," Legolas agreed, "I really do."

The family turned towards the path the other elflings had run up a few minutes before, probably heading towards the mentioned dinner.

Gimli's companion began to make his way there as well, "Well come now, you're already here, you might as well have a meal before I take you on back to continue your resting." He paused to turn back to the dwarf masked an elf, "Just do not tell my brother, Manwe, for he will most likely consider this meddling."

These long legs made short work of the distance as he came closer, "And you do not?"

The other elf seemed unconcerned, "I have full intentions to return you to my hall and your people after this night. Unless you would like to return now?"

"No thank you.. might I talk to Legolas first? Please? Before I return."

"It is why I have brought you here. Come, come, they have already begun to feast. You have until sunrise before I take you back with me, Varda is shielding you from the gaze of my brothers and sisters."

…

(The first time I post this chapter the last few lines didn't appear and I'm not sure why... sorry about the confusion everyone!)

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **Can't wait to hear your thoughts**


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